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This really took me by surprise. Just bought a new Naga 2012 mouse, installed the software and get greeted by a login screen right after. No option to bypass it to use the software to configure the mouse, set the options, sensitivity, shortcuts, macros etc.

So I go ahead and create an account and try to log in. Nothing. Try several more times, and still nothing. Try to make new accounts with different email addresses and it still wont work.

Finally call Razer who tells me the activation server is down, and I wont be able to use the mouse until it goes back up and will only be able to use it as a standard plug and play mouse til then. I ask about a workaround to use the mouse offline and they say there is none. Supposedly once the mouse is activated on the computer offline mode will work, but it needs to upload my profile and activate my account first and since their server is down its not going to happen. I ask for a supervisor to confirm this is the case and ask again for a workaround to use it offline. He said sorry theres nothing they can do, tells me the call center is closing and hangs up on me.

Im pretty shocked Razer thought it was a good idea to do this to customers. Nowhere on the box does it say anything about needing an internet connection to "activate" a mouse. If the servers go down in the future, anyone who buys this mouse is out of luck.

Honestly the last time I buy a Razer product. Absolutely ridiculous.

**Update**

Thought I would clarify a few things since Ive been asked about this a lot.

More here (10 pages already)
Read through a few pages and seems legit. Sticking to Logitech for now
And I was actually looking for a replacement mouse and looking at Razer as
an alternative. No way now.

'We don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing'

I think their idea of store-stuff-on-the-net-so-you-have-all-your-profiles-anywhere is fine enough. Their implementation, on the other hand, is so brain damaged that I don't know what to think. (Of course, that's not super surprising: While I like their hardware, their software has always been really crappy.)

I think their idea of store-stuff-on-the-net-so-you-have-all-your-profiles-anywhere is fine enough. Their implementation, on the other hand, is so brain damaged that I don't know what to think. (Of course, that's not super surprising: While I like their hardware, their software has always been really crappy.)

Good point, except that it is a piece of physical hardware. Put some flash in it and store the profile right there where it will be needed anytime you want to use it.

I think their idea of store-stuff-on-the-net-so-you-have-all-your-profiles-anywhere is fine enough. Their implementation, on the other hand, is so brain damaged that I don't know what to think. (Of course, that's not super surprising: While I like their hardware, their software has always been really crappy.)

Good point, except that it is a piece of physical hardware. Put some flash in it and store the profile right there where it will be needed anytime you want to use it.

Yeah. Their argument is that they've had to keep adding more and more flash to store larger and more numerous profiles (I don't personally *use* profiles, so I don't really get this), which is why they want to move to storing them somewhere other than on the device itself.

Actually, I just realized why that's important--not for the mice, etc., but for the keyboards with the customizable key images and trackpad images and stuff. Those would start to take up a reasonable chunk of space, if you've got profiles for multiple games stored away.

I bought a Naga in July and never bothered installing the software or setting up an account because I didn't think the handful of fiddly bits in the software was worth the time it took to go through the process. I just wanted extra buttons to facilitate the more action-y combat in The Secret World.

Razer is run by pretty good guys with gamers in mind..they will fix this pretty quick

I think they said on their Facebook page a fix is in the works. But their drivers have been terrible. Only once I moved to Synapse did the problems go away, but I hate using Synapse compared to the old interface, especially since it actually takes enough CPU cycles to show up as a 1% CPU utilization in the task manager.

I've had both good and bad experiences with Razer products but yeah, they aren't Ubisoft and they don't have a real reason to require an Internet connection. This honestly feels like a dumb design decision in making their latest software version that for some reason made it through testing with no one questioning it. I'm certain they will patch this and end up apologising. The hardcore PC community is what keeps them in business, they aren't going to purposefully piss them off.

On other forums people are saying this is a blatant data mining exercise whereby they want to grab as much info about their customers as possible.

To be honest, I'd hate this in a product I bought. To have to register to be able to use the basic functionality of the device (profiles and whatnot for the games) or have it locked out if I didn't go online or have the work offline box ticked when there was a problem with their servers... I'd be rightly pissed off.

I've had good luck with Razer hardware (And really, the hardware switched buttons on their left-handed deathadder is a godsend. You would be *amazed* at how many games and how much software outright ignores the OS set mouse handedness.), and their customer service has always been pretty great. This seems like just a really, really bad idea that everyone missed for the trees, and not some maniacal slide into terrible buisness practices. If they keep it up and don't actually fix it, I'm willing to revise my opinion, though.

I saw an article somewhere that pointed out that this was probably the marketroids at Razer -- they'd love to have all that info, so requiring it from you before they give you an account serves their purposes very well.

It doesn't, however, serve yours. It's a locked-down mouse that you need permission to use, just like iOS and Metro. Locked hardware is not for your benefit, it's for the benefit of the company.

Oh, and they spouted a bunch of bafflegab about 'the increasing cost of memory', which is a ridiculous pile of garbage. Memory costs drop by half about every eighteen months, and if you need more than, say, 32K of permanent storage in a mouse, you've probably got a design problem.

I'd be willing to spend an extra ten cents to get a mouse with all the memory it needs.

Razer is like a hot hookup that turns into a terrible girlfriend. I buy their stuff because it's sexy and fast, and then shortly after I regret it because it breaks down or the crazy comes out and stuff inexplicably just doesn't work properly. Yet I keep coming back like an idiot, because their stuff just feels nice in the hand.

I just got a Deathadder, figuring that a model that had been around for a couple of years wouldn't require Synapse. Except that the non-Synapse Mac drivers won't install under Mountain Lion, so (if I'm reading Razer's FAQ's correctly) I get to choose between installing Synapse on both my Windows 7 desktop and Mac laptop, or not being able to fully configure the mouse on the laptop.

Given that almost of all of my gaming is on the desktop anyway, it's not a huge deal, but it'd be nice if Razer has fixed Synapse.

The Razer Naga 2012 is a mouse. Quite a complex and expensive mouse, actually: for $79.99, you’ll get 17 buttons and the ability to store profiles and set up macros for MMOs. Unlike a mouse, though, it’s attached to a piece of software that requires online activation to install. And lately, Razer’s activation servers have been down for long stretches at a time, rendering new Naga 2012s usable only as standard plug-in-and-play mice. For $79.99.

Amid this mess, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan has spoken to confirm that activation servers will be “sorted out”, and to defend his software: “Synapse 2.0 is NOT DRM. Our products work perfectly well out of the box without Synapse 2.0.”

“We invented onboard memory for gaming mice many years ago and called it Synapse to allow gamers to bring their profiles with them on the go,” said Tan in a statement picked up on Team Liquid. “However, we realized that we ran into another issue where we had to keep increasing the amount of memory onboard to provide for more storage and this resulted in higher and higher prices for gamers.

“We then invented Synapse 2.0 where we could provide almost limitless amount of storage for profiles, macros, etc in the cloud as opposed to being limited by physical memory. We wanted to avoid raising prices to gamers for higher memory space onboard (think about it like having to buy bigger and bigger hard drives as opposed to having all your storage on the cloud) and provide a much better service for our users.

Synapse 2.0 is “not DRM”, says Tan. He draws a distinction between DRM, which punishes the user by taking functionality away, and his software, which provides “ADDITIONAL functionality of almost limitless memory in the cloud”.

“Our products work perfectly well out of the box without Synapse 2.0,” Tan continued. “We recognize that gamers will want to be able to use their gear without an online connection, and that's why Synapse 2.0 has an OFFLINE mode. Basically you have to register, create an account, save your initial settings and if you so prefer, you can stay in offline mode all the time without going online.

“I realize that we have had issues with the activation server, and we're making sure we get that sorted out,” he added.

The initial complainant at Overclock claims that no internet activation was mentioned anywhere on the mouse’s box. Have you had trouble with Razer’s servers or - god forbid - attempted to set up your mouse without a connection? Let us know your thoughts.

“User Generated Information” means any information made available to Razer through your use of the Software. Subject to the Privacy Policy mentioned above, you expressly grant Razer the complete and irrevocable right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly display and perform the User Generated Information and derivative works thereof in any form, anywhere, with or without attribution to you, and without any notice or compensation to you of any kind.

By using Razer Synapse 2.0 (“Synapse”), the Subscriber agrees that Razer may collect aggregate information, individual information, and personally identifiable information. Razer may share aggregate information and individual information with other parties. Razer shall not share personally identifiable information with other parties, except as described in the policy below.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Razer View Post

Our products work perfectly out of the box. Unlike DRM games or other media that require an always‐on connection, you can use any of our peripherals right out of the box, even if someone doesn’t install Synapse 2.0, and whether a user is offline or online..

This is a lie. The product does not work perfectly out of the box unless you count basic plug and play with all its advertised features stripped away as working right out of the box.

And much more. So it's still waiting. Meanwhile I will stay with Logitech.

'We don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing'

Huh that's weird; I just plugged my Naga (last years model) into my work laptop and after Windows did it's driver thing, it and the number pad on the side worked fine.

Also has anyone stated if you can just use an older version of Synapse, to make use of the macro functionality?

You can, but at least in my case all pre-Synapse 2.0 drivers were buggy as hell. Even with Synapse 2.0 I still have issues, namely that on bootup I occasionally get a small gray rectangle appearing in the upper left of my screen that only goes away when I kill the synapse task. It also takes several seconds to recognize my button settings (using a DeathAdder left handed but with the buttons in right-handed mode) after connecting it, so I have to right-click to select stuff until the driver kicks in. On top of that, the driver randomly will keep my nvidia optimus active, killing battery life.

edit: in case I misunderstood your question, I believe the driver and the app have always been tied together, so you can't just the Windows driver with the Synapse app.

Ben Kuchera investigated this issue beginning of the month. As far as I know him, he is pretty down to earth and on the dot.Here you will find his article.
A few quotes:

We are only syncing your settings, as we need a way to identify users with their product(s), and link product setting to the user, so the account creation is name and email, that’s really it,” they explained. “I’m not sure what information gathering you are speaking of, but the idea that the software is recording anything more than user created settings for storage in the cloud is not correct

on the TOS:

Razer responded by claiming this aspect of the Terms of Service was “standard boilerplate language.” You can see the same language in the Steam Terms of Service:

Read the replies for counter points.

'We don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing'